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Comment by latch | Hacker News Reader

kinda neat...but...you need to read: http://contrastrebellion.com/

and redesign your site...easily the biggest violation of my eyes ever.

For many people, high intensity/high contrast also causes eyestrain. There's nothing wrong or unreadable about medium contrast text, despite what the somewhat triumphalist contrastrebellion would have you believe.

I didn't have any problem reading the site - perhaps it's your eyes?

In fact, I'd say the Contrast Rebellion logo is the biggest violation of my eyes. Scrolling up and down doesn't seem right...

I spent a good 30 seconds doing that and giggling.

The list.js is completely and easily readable.

My favorite part about the Contrast Rebellion is that Media Temple is listed as one of the bad examples... and then at the bottom:

hosted by (mt) Media Temple

lol.. hn is on the list.

The screenshot is of an older version of HN. pg, Did the change occur as a result of showing up on Contrast Rebellion?

There's a fair amount of merit to downvoted comments having their contrast lowered.

I hate that, personally. I don't always have to agree with whoever downvoted, or sometimes I'm just curious about what it said.

Especially the lowest contrast, after several downvotes, that's just stupid, because it's pretty much unreadable unless you select the text. So you know there's text, but you can't really read it, then why show it at all?

I'd say is so you can quickly highlight it to read it.

Except that's not a downvoted comment or an old version as far as I can tell; it's the text of a Ask HN/Show HN thing. I never really understood why those are colored gray, either.

Edit: Ok, apparently it's supposed to discourage using HN as a blog (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2807183). I still think it's odd.

That's an awful website too. White text on dark background is a complete readability failure, no matter how much contrast it provides.

In some agreement... According to an article on "color for developers" that was posted at some point on HN, one gets a better "pop" contrast if there is a smidgeon of color. As I read it, using white or black, regardless of the other color involved in the combo, is less effective. One should strive instead to add at least a little bit of color and contrast that color with the other. For example, if you toss a tiny bit of blue into your black, then you should toss a tiny bit of yellow/orange into your white. The contrast is not in symmetric values either; R, G, and B have different contributions to the brightness.

If I have the time to dig up the article I am thinking about, I will add it to this post.

(Here is the HN thread on the contrastrebellion site: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2807047)

Twaddle! I find dark text on a white background unbearable. I'm much happier with off white on a dark background.

Anyway - each to their own. It looked okay to me, apart from some tiny script in places. (Safari, OSX 10.4, 1280x854)

> White text on dark background is a complete readability failure, no matter how much contrast it provides.

I prefer white-on-black. To me, reading black-on-white feels somewhat akin to staring into a projector.

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